“I thought you wanted to save the world today.” Sarcasm dripped from Tav’s tongue.
Eli shrugged. “We can do that later if we feel like it. You coming or not?” She held out an espresso shot. Cam had been teaching her how to use the machine. She didn’t tell Tav that she’d cried when she made coffee that morning.
Tav took the petite cup, tossed it back, winced at the taste, and then stood. “Fine. But I’m driving.” They didn’t change out of their dirty lounge pants and sweat-stained T-shirt. Eli hadn’t expected them to.
Eli felt a thrill when she climbed up behind Tav. She could see the anger, hurt, and despair swimming through Tav’s body. They were running out of hope.
She knew that feeling. Tav and Cam had been the ones to keep her going when she wanted to give up. Now it was Eli’s turn to help.
“Where?” Tav’s voice was thick and sharp as a bramble.
“Take a right.”
Eli directed Tav out of the city, away from the traffic lights and smells of grease and air freshener.
“I hope you aren’t taking me away from town to murder me,” Tav said.
“If I wanted to kill you, you wouldn’t see it coming.”
“That’s very reassuring.”
“You’re welcome.” Eli squeezed their thighs around Tav’s torso for a moment. She was excited to be in a body again. Every time she came back she revelled in the sense of touch.
The hot leather of the seat underneath her. The feeling of Tav’s shoulder blades and rib cage against her chest and arms. The soft fuzz on the back of Tav’s neck, purple fading to black. Eli wanted to stroke it. She wanted to drink in all the smells and sounds and touches that her human body gave to her, and nothing — not the threat of annihilation, not a grieving human — was going to ruin it for her today.
“Turn left up here,” she said.
“That isn’t a road.”
Eli leaned forward, her mouth hovering near Tav’s exposed neck, and whispered, “Trust me. Now.”
Tav turned sharply, the bike spraying gravel and dirt behind them.
Eli watched the pulse at Tav’s throat, the lively beat of a human heart.
“Stop,” she ordered. She watched Tav shiver slightly at the feeling of Eli’s breath on their neck.
She had done that. She had the power to make Tav tremble.
Trust me, she had said. And Tav had. Tav did.
Without the roar of the motorcycle, Eli could suddenly hear the fierce percussion of Tav’s heartbeat thundering in her ears, could hear both of their breathing like an ocean song. And something else — a hum in the distance. Eli smiled.
She climbed off the bike and offered Tav her hand, remembering the first time they had met: Eli had fallen from the sky, ejected from the Vortex too soon. Tav had pulled them up from the pavement.
Now, Eli watched her hand hang between them, bobbing slightly, like a flower in the breeze.
After a moment, Tav took it. Calloused palm and fingertips, with patches of softness, pressed against Eli’s skin.
The smile widened.
A low, dense forest. A small path — no more than a deer trail — wound through the branches and nettles. Hundreds of wildflowers wove between twigs and emerged from under stones: Queen Anne’s lace and chamomile, creeping bellflowers, blueweed, and cornflowers.
They left the bike, the helmets, the gravel behind. Eli led, and Tav followed. They ducked under thin branches and stepped over fallen logs, half-rotted, swarming with black ants like a net of lace.
After a few steps, Tav dropped Eli’s hand and wiped sweat onto their pants. When Eli reached for their hand again, Tav said, “Don’t.” Eli dropped her hand.
To Eli, every step felt like a gift. Tav was choosing to follow her.
Each step was a love letter.
She kept waiting for her heavy body to fade, for the intensity of colour and anticipation and nerves to recede like a tide slipping away from the shore. But it didn’t happen. This time, she miraculously stayed in the here and now. Impulsively, she kicked off her shoes, stripped off her socks, and went barefoot. She could feel Tav staring at her.
She met their gaze. “What?”
Tav shook their head, a slight frown wrinkling the skin on their forehead. “You’re just different, that’s all.”
Eli’s thumb brushed an edge of bone, and a haunting wail rang out from the blade. “Yes,” she agreed. “I am different.”
The woods thinned, opening up into a field that stretched to the edge of the horizon. Eli didn’t need to tell Tav that this was their destination.
A sea of purple.
An ocean.
A universe.
A field of allium flowers stretched to the horizon. To Eli, it looked like the land was running into the arms of the sky, and the sky was falling down to meet it. Purple and green bled into blue and pink, and it was one picture, one perfect moment, one monument to a planet that never belonged to humanity.
The humming was stronger now, a persistent sound that filled the air, that crowded Eli’s mind and ears and mouth and nostrils, that vibrated in her bones and thorns and granite.
An image surfaced in her mind’s eye: a girl with cruel eyes. A blade of wasps, ready to tear Eli apart. Panic tore through her body and she froze.
“Bees,” said Tav, looking around.
Thousands of bees were swarming the field of flowers, crawling and flying, tasting and drinking the sweet nectar.
Eli exhaled slowly. The assassin was gone, trapped somewhere in the City of Eyes. She was safe — or as safe as she could be in this body.
Barefoot, Eli walked into the purple sea, the heads of flowers brushing against the worn knees of her jeans. The buzzing intensified, drowning out her thoughts and fears, crescendoing and then decrescendoing like an orchestra. Ebbing and flowing like the tides, or the moon. Eli was drowning in purple, in the land that was also the sky, in the sky that was heavy and noisy and full. She was one small flower among many; one star
